The Goldilocks Planet

The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate

Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams

Subject of incredible importance - climate change has become one of the most important issues in the world today - scientifically, socially, and politically

Tells the story of how the Earth's climate has changed over a 4.5 billion-year history

Considers how this history can be used to predict the future of the Earth

Looks at how the Earth has remained consistently habitable for life for over three billion years - in stark contrast to its planetary neighbours

The Goldilocks Planet

The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate

Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams

Description

Climate change is a major topic of concern today and will be so for the foreseeable future, as predicted changes in global temperatures, rainfall, and sea level continue to take place. But as Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams reveal in The Goldilocks Planet, the climatic changes we are experiencing today hardly compare to the changes the Earth has seen over the last 4.5 billion years.

Indeed, the vast history that the authors relate here is dramatic and often abrupt--with massive changes in global and regional climate, from bitterly cold to sweltering hot, from arid to humid. They introduce us to the Cryogenian period, the days of Snowball Earth seven hundred million years ago, when ice spread to cover the world, then melted abruptly amid such dramatic climatic turbulence that hurricanes raged across the Earth. We read about the Carboniferous, with tropical jungles at the equator (where Pennsylvania is now) and the Cretaceous Period, when the polar regions saw not ice but dense conifer forests of cypress and redwood, with gingkos and ferns. The authors also show how this history can be read from clues preserved in the Earth's strata. The evidence is abundant, though always incomplete--and often baffling, puzzling, infuriating, tantalizing, seemingly contradictory. Geologists, though, are becoming ever more ingenious at deciphering this evidence, and the story of the Earth's climate is now being reconstructed in ever-greater detail--maybe even providing us with clues to the future of contemporary climate change.

And through all of this, the authors conclude, the Earth has remained perfectly habitable--in stark contrast to its planetary neighbors. Not too hot, not too cold; not too dry, not too wet--"the Goldilocks planet."

The Goldilocks Planet

The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate

Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams

Table of Contents

Prologue 1. Primordial climate2. Snowball Earth3. Between greenhouse and icehouse4. The last long greenhouse5. An ice age begins6. Last gasp of a warm Earth7. Into the icehouse8. The glacial world9. The last ten thousand years10. The Anthropocene begins

The Goldilocks Planet

The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate

Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams

Author Information

Jan Zalasiewicz is Senior Lecturer in Geology at Leicester University. He is the author of The Earth After Us and The Planet in a Pebble.Mark Williams is Reader in Geology at Leicester University. Both are established researchers into palaeoclimates and climate change.

The Goldilocks Planet

The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate

Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams

From Our Blog

By Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams Imagine that time machine has finally been invented. All of the ancient Earth can now be visited. One could experience the world as it was: see long-dissipated cloud systems with one's own eyes, feel ancient rain and primeval winds, and sense the warmth of prehistoric sunshine on one's back. A safari into the ancient past with just 5 stops were allowed. Where would one choose to go?

Climate change is a major topic of concern today, scientifically, socially, and politically. But the Earth's climate has continuously altered over its 4.5 billion-year history. Geologists are becoming ever more ingenious at interrogating this baffling, puzzling, infuriating, tantalizing, and seemingly contradictory evidence. The story of the Earth's climate is now being reconstructed in ever-greater detail ' maybe even providing us with clues to the future of contemporary climate change. Below, you can listen to Dr Jan Zalasiewicz and Dr Mark Williams talk about the topics raised in their book The Goldilocks Planet: The four billion year story of Earths Climate.